Jamal explains SaaS: software you access online where servers do the heavy lifting. Key advantages include lower costs, automatic updates, and easy scaling. Before adopting, check integrations with your existing tools, plan user management, track ROI, and consider platforms like Zylo to monitor licenses and costs.
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What's up? It's Jamal. And welcome back to the channel. In this video, I'm going to teach you the ins and outs of SaaS with a special focus on how the software innovation can really help your business. And I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, SaaS like when someone's real cheeky with me at the company water cooler. No, I'm talking about software as a service. You should talk to HR about that. Software as a service is a pretty big trend in the industry, and if you want to learn more about the latest marketing trends, check out the link below to our free 2021 State of Marketing report. And while you're down there, be sure to subscribe to this channel and ring that notification bell so you never miss a video. So HubSpot defined software as a service as a relatively new software distribution model, giving customers access to applications over the Internet rather than requiring a physical media and custom installation. What that means is, unlike traditional software that runs on your computer's own memory, a large majority of the processing used by SaaS software takes place on a centralized server with only the user interface running on your computer or smartphone. This type of distributed computing revolutionized the software industry, allowing for incredible innovations that benefit users. Some of these benefits include reduced time to benefit, which means you can start using most SaaS almost immediately without having to wait to install and configure it lower cost per user, as well as savings realized from not needing to employ a full IT team. Scalability, meaning the service can easily expand and contract depending on your needs and automated updates that take place on the service side rather than in your office. Now, this is all great. All right, I think we can all agree that this is good for the industry as a whole. Okay? But I think the biggest advantage of SaaS is that it lets companies test out a wide variety of software solutions without the huge costs of buying traditional software stacks. But the SaaS market is made up of much more than the logos everyone recognizes. Remember when Microsoft felt like the only software company in the world? If you do, you're an old bag of bones just like me. Not gonna take that back. The SaaS revolution has enabled thousands of startups to create custom solutions for all sorts of niche business needs. Here are a few of our favorites just in the realms of marketing, sales and operations. When the pandemic put a sudden stop to public gathering, businesses around the world found themselves scrambling to replace in person events with online experiences to fill the top of their lead gen funnels on 24 was one of the many companies to step up with a solution allowing businesses to put on high quality webinars and virtual conferences without the need for large production and tech teams. These SaaS tools were leveraged by some of the world's biggest companies like GE, Visa and Eli Lilly. Even Microsoft found themselves using On24 software to drive customer engagement. The fact is, virtually all SaaS companies saw significant growth even as the global economy was shutting down. HubSpot's suite of marketing, sales and service SaaS products supported thousands of online new businesses that were launched during the pandemic. New users were able to use free versions of each HubSpot platform, only moving up to paid tiers as their business grew. This is another key advantage of SaaS. Because costs are low and onboarding minimal compared to traditional software, businesses can test out solutions before making major commitments. Thanks to the low barrier of entry, there's virtually no business task that can't be accomplished using SaaS.
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HubSpot Grow Better Here's a checklist of things you should ask yourself when getting ready to employ a new SaaS product for your business. Step 1 Before introducing a new SaaS into your business ecosystem is checking if it integrates with existing software that you're using. The highly fragmented nature of the SaaS market has allowed for a lot of innovation and giving new players spaces to shine, but it also left gaps where a SaaS running one small business function might not play nicely with another service that you also need. Without good integrations, any efficiencies you hope to get from using SaaS can be quickly eliminated. The really cool thing about HubSpot is that it permits connecting hundreds of approved apps. We also build and maintain our own apps for integrating with the most popular software from social media and sales to project management and productivity. Together it forms a distributed web of the best software solutions available today. And even if one of the services goes down, it's easier to replace it with another one instead of rebuilding the entire web. This means that your team can continue to function with minimal interruptions. That said, running SaaS, particularly in larger organizations, can require some degree of in house support. Making sure the users have logins and permissions required to do their job can itself become a full time job. I've certainly seen my fair share of CEOs mantled with the role of IT person because they're the only one with an admin level login. Of course, if you're a solo entrepreneur or head of a small operation, then SaaS provides you with all the tools you could possibly need to run your business effectively. So in planning your SaaS future, thinking long and far ahead, you want to have a plan in place to measure various KPIs and ROIs. If not, you could end up spending a lot of time using SaaS tools that don't actually improve your your business, or far worse, accruing monthly subscription fees that add up to a sizable expense that doesn't pay for itself in the long run. The good news is there's an app for that. Zylo is a SaaS designed to manage your SaaS. It's kind of like Inception, frankly. It tracks your SaaS licenses, your usage, and your expenses. I could name 10 other apps that do the same thing, so you might need to do a little research to find the best one for your needs. But like I said at the beginning, SaaS is great for testing out the latest in business and marketing trends without making a major commitment. If you think SaaS can help your business but you're not sure where to begin, download our free State of Marketing 2021 report and find an initiative that you think could make a difference. You can start by looking at the list of HubSpot integrations that you'll also find in the description below. And while you're down there, remember to subscribe to this channel so we can keep you up to date on all of the latest marketing trends. We'll try to help you find the right SaaS for those as well. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make a SaaS that combines every other SaaS into itself. I'm going to call it Sassy. Until then, I'll see you next time. Even as a Global Economy A Comedy Emanals Eminels Amanimals Words are hard. All right.
